


Break of Day

by HPFandom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-11
Updated: 2008-01-11
Packaged: 2018-10-01 09:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10185833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HPFandom_archivist/pseuds/HPFandom_archivist
Summary: Head held high but his fingers shaking, little Lucius Malfoy waits for the Hogwarts Express for the first time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from SeparatriX, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [HP Fandom](http://fanlore.org/wiki/HP_Fandom_\(archive\)), which was closed for health and financial reasons. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [HP Fandom collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hpfandom/profile).

This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

 

It was a fresh September morning, the sky patchy with clouds and the sun shining stubbornly. A pleasant breeze swooned through the air and tumbled over the Hogwarts Express, looping and twisting around the students and easing the heat of their first day nerves. 

The platform was heaving, students and their parents milling, flitting and flailing with last minute panic. People shoved and shouted, called and whistled, and the doors of the train opened and banged, opened and banged. It was loud, uncivilized and somewhat smelly. 

Lucius Malfoy walked between his parents as his trunk floated behind, his eyes wide with morbid curiosity and his urge to clasp his father’s hand great. But he couldn’t do that, and he was glad that both his hands were currently occupied holding Aryiola’s cage, thus preventing him from committing an act as stupid as hand-holding.

Aryiola, the most beautiful Eagle Owl in the whole world, sat in her cage and glanced through the thin bars, unconcerned. And that was probably because there was really nothing to be concerned about—

‘Tut tut, so many Mudbloods,’ Lucius’s father said. ‘What is the wizarding world coming to?’

—except for all the Mudbloods. 

Lucius wasn’t entirely sure how one could tell, but apparently there was a visual difference between a Mudblood and a proper wizard, because his mother agreed and shook her head disapprovingly. 

The Hogwarts Express was quite a sight, magnificent red and black, trimmed with gold and framed by billowing steam. It was colossal and imposing and for a moment nothing else existed in Lucius’s world except for that train and the promise of what was waiting at the other end. 

A window slid down, several heads poking through with toothy grins and boisterous voices, and the spell was broken.

‘How about this one?’ Lucius’s father said, gesturing haphazardly at a carriage. 

‘No.’ There were other children in that one already. He wanted to be the first. If he was the first then others would have to approach him.

‘Arthur, wait! Your toad!’

Lucius watched a red-faced, red-haired, gangly, idiot of a boy get off the train to collect a large ugly toad. 

‘Thanks, Mum.’ 

‘Don’t forget to write. And no wandering around the castle!’

‘I’ll try!’ The boy glanced at him as he passed and grinned.

‘Blood traitors,’ Abraxas Malfoy whispered. ‘They’re always mixing with Muggles and Mudbloods. Stay away from that boy, Lucius.’

‘Of course, Father.’ And Lucius turned away.

They eventually found an empty carriage near the back. Perfect. Lucius climbed aboard, struggling with Aryiola’s golden cage. It tilted dangerously until Lucius gained a firmer grip, and Aryiola hooted and flapped her massive wings enough to blow Lucius’s hair into a tangle.

‘Oh for goodness sake, start using gel immediately, Lucius,’ his mother scolded from outside the train. 

‘Yes, Mother.’ He settled the cage on the floor and wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve.’

‘Oh, oh, oh, you … un _couth_ boy. Use this.’ She handed him a handkerchief and Lucius dabbed for show only as his sleeve had already completed the task.

His father levitated the trunk on board and settled it on the floor. ‘Right, we’ll take our leave, then. Behave and remember who you are.’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘And I expect to see good school marks. You will be top of the class or they’ll be trouble. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘Don’t make me regret sending you to that Merlin-forsaken school. I still say Durmstrang would have suited you better.’ 

His mother nodded and took out her powder compact. It was silver with a hissing snake coiled around the circumference. As a small boy, Lucius had loved tracing it with his index finger, feeling the tiny scales and pulling his hand away just as it struck. 

‘Will you send me some sweets, Mother?’ 

She gave him a look and snapped her compact shut. ‘Perhaps. If your grades are good enough. Will they be?’

Lucius straightened his back and lifted his chin. ‘Yes, Mother.’

They walked away and Lucius watched them. They walked taller than the other parents and were dressed exceedingly better. Lucius saw the envious stares and the wide birth they were given. His parents were powerful. They were Malfoys. He was a Malfoy.

He hated being a Malfoy. When he grew up and had children of his own, he would never treat them in such a way, with such coldness and disdain. 

‘Need a hand with that?’

Lucius turned at the voice. It was that tall, ginger boy again. Lucius looked him up and down, took in the shabby trousers, the too-small cloak and the felt hat that looked like something a village idiot would wear. 

‘Your trunk,’ the boy said. ‘It looks heavy. You need a hand getting it in the overhead?’

‘From you? My father says you’re a blood traitor.’

The boy look confused. His brow furrowed and his messy, ginger eyebrows met in the middle. ‘Was that a no?’

‘I can do it myself,’ Lucius snapped. ‘I don’t need help from your sort.’

‘Oh. Fine. I was only trying to be friendly.’

‘Get out of my carriage.’

‘Suit yourself.’ The boy held up his hands and backed away. ‘Pureblood twit,’ he added in a whisper that was just loud enough to hear. 

Lucius levitated his own trunk and, after several disastrous attempts and one crushed toe, he finally managed to seat it in the overhead wrack. Aryiola hooted her approval and tucked her head under her wing.

The Hogwarts Express pulled away, slowly at first and with great creaking noises and sounds of obvious effort. The train chugged along slowly through London and Lucius perched on the edge of his seat all the way. No one else had dared enter his carriage yet, which was fine; he didn’t want company anyway.

‘Can I sit here?’ 

Lucius looked up at a large, round, monkey-faced boy he recognized. ‘Do I know you?’

‘Crabbe,’ Crabbe said, pointing at himself. ‘My father knows your father. I came to your birthday party last year.’

Lucius nodded. He remembered few people from that day, although he did remember all the wonderful presents. ‘You may sit.’

Crabbe sat opposite and the two boys stared at each other, one slumped and awkward and the other stiff and calculating.

‘Hi,’ said another voice just as Lucius was about to finally speak.

‘That’s Goyle,’ Crabbe said. ‘You probably remember him, too.’

And he did. Sort of. ‘You may sit,’ he said, and Goyle grinned and sat down next to Crabbe with a bounce.

They didn’t have a lot to say for themselves, these strange two boys, so Lucius decided to do all the talking. He mentioned Mudbloods and purity, half-bloods and Muggle-borns. Crabbe and Goyle stared at him with vacant expressions, sometimes nodding, sometimes smiling with near-comprehension and sometimes growing aggressive when it seemed to be called for.

Lucius liked them very much. ‘There’s a tall, ginger boy, idiotic with the most Merlin-awful green hat. He’s a blood traitor. Go teach him a lesson for daring to approach me.’

He was half-joking, a quarter serious and a quarter curious, and he hid his surprise when Crabbe and Goyle got up like a pair of marionettes and waddled off to complete the task.

The rest of the journey went quickly. Lucius admired Crabbe and Goyle’s bruised knuckles and he regaled them with tales of splendor, his father’s torturous antics and his own mischievous and clever deeds.

Navigating Aryiola into a ridiculously small boat was the next bit of fun. It was dark and cold by this time and his two new friends were starting to grate on his nerves. The little boat bobbed and bounced and by halfway Lucius was feeling decidedly ill. His stomach lurched and by the time it came to climb out of the boat, he stood too soon and overbalanced. Crabbe and Goyle had no choice but to save Aryiola, as she was thrust upon them, but there were no hands left to save Lucius and he fell into the water to the tune of a mighty splash and roars of childish laughter.

Lucius felt his face burning even though the water he was sitting in was freezing cold.

‘Ha ha, look at that strange boy. His hair isn’t so white now, eh?’ 

Everyone was laughing now, every single student, everyone in Hogwarts, everyone in the whole wide world. They pointed and they mocked and they all hated him and he hated them and he would tell his father and they would all pay—

‘Shut up!’ Lucius screamed. ‘All of you, shut up this instant!’

‘Who do you think you are?’ said a skinny boy who was hovering over him in a threatening manner.

‘All righ’, tha’s enough now. Nothin’ to see. Go on, get off with yeh.’

The biggest, ugliest, filthiest man Lucius had ever seen towered over the hovering boy, hands as big as dinner plates and his head as big as the moon itself. The boy quailed and ran to the shore.

‘Need a hand down there?’ the beastly giant asked. ‘Malfoy, innit?’ He held out his hand and Lucius dodged out of the way. He splashed to his feet and backed away.

‘Don’t touch me.’

But the giant wasn’t listening. ‘I got a blanket somewhere. Come on, then. Le’s get yeh warm and dry.’ And with that Lucius was plucked from the water and carried to shore where he was wrapped up like a baby in swaddling and carried to the castle. 

The children laughed and made fun all the way. They whispered and smirked and teased.

‘Name’s Rubeus Hagrid,’ the animal said and, right there, right then, Lucius silently promised revenge on this ridiculous creature. 

He was still damp and whiffing slightly of stagnant water by the time Sorting began. Lucius was Sorted into Slytherin, as he knew he would be, and he finally felt a little bit of pride as he walked to his table and took the seat next to Crabbe. 

‘We’re going to get that poor excuse for a giant,’ he announced to his friend, ‘and you’re going to help me.’

Crabbe tipped a nod to Goyle who was sat opposite. ‘Yes, boss,’ they both said. 

The feast was adequate and Lucius was hungry, so he ate an entire plateful and half of another. Pudding was sticky and fulfilling and Lucius’s belly was starting to ache by the time he was finished. But the best part was all the other Slytherins. They had such stories to tell and their beliefs were his beliefs. He felt an immediate kinship and when he looked at them, they simply looked back. There was no fear, no smirk, no judgment, no pitiful begging expression that only the poor held. 

The dungeons were cold at first, stone walls, stone floors and sparse furniture. But the fires was soon lit, one on each wall, and the common room soon glowed orange and felt snug. Lucius settled by the east fire, content to relax and watch the others mingling and chattering. Crabbe and Goyle sat each side of him and seemed to do the same, except Lucius got the feeling they weren’t actually watching or thinking or feeling anything. 

‘ _Dumbledore!_ ’ a female voice spat. ‘That bumbling fool will be the death of this school. You’ve seen what the _Prophet_ says. Yet he still lets in all those filthy Mudbloods.’ 

Lucius looked up at an attractive girl, tall with the most luscious black hair he’d ever seen. She was pale, like him, and her heavy-lidded eyes spoke of a fiery temper and a calculating mind possibly even beyond his own.

‘What are you looking at, you irritating little boy?’ she asked.

She was the most beautiful girl in the world: her hair like silk, her eyes like precious jewels and her figure like a goddess. Surely there was none more beautiful than she?

‘Well, boy? What’s the matter? Basilisk got your tongue?’

But she had the most deplorable manners. 

The bed felt hard at first, rigid and lonely, but after a while it was merely firm and of good quality. The dorm was dark, drafty and uninviting, but that was probably because the lights were off and some imbecile had opened a window. Lucius shut it and got back into bed. He pulled the scratchy covers up under his chin and listened to the wind blowing gently outside. 

Hogwarts was … okay. It was better than being shipped off to Durmstrang, and there was no doubt that there was much more fun and learning to be had here than at home where Mother was always doing her make-up and spritzing everything in sight with her musty perfume, and Father did nothing but read his books and complain about the state of the Ministry.

Hogwarts was a turning point in his life and Lucius had every intention of taking full advantage. There were sights to see, wonders to learn and connections to be made. The future of The Ministry itself lay between these walls, and Lucius intended to witness it unfold and be a part of it. Shrink, he would not.

‘Who shut that damn window?’

‘I did. Is it a problem?’

‘Actually yes. I’m boiling alive here.’

‘What a shame,’ Lucius said. ‘I, myself, am quite clement. If you want to cool down, I suggest you join the squid in the lake.’

‘Why you selfish—!’

Crabbe and Goyle jumped out of bed, and Lucius smiled and closed his eyes to sleep.

He was going to enjoy Hogwarts.

 

The End


End file.
